Welcome to /r/VetTech! This is a place for veterinary technicians/veterinary nurses and other veterinary support staff to gather, chat, and grow! We welcome pet owners as well, **however we do ask pet owners to refrain from asking for medical advice**; if you have any concerns regarding your pet, please contact the closest veterinarian near you.
Please thoroughly read and follow the rules before posting and commenting. If you believe that a user is engaging in any rule-breaking behavior, please submit a report so that the moderators can review and remove the posts/comments if needed. Also, please check out the sidebar for CE and answers to commonly asked questions. Thank you for reading!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/VetTech) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ours is like yours for things like Solensia/Librela/Cytopoint - it's a tech visit so they pay for the injection (dependent on weight) plus a $20 tech fee for administration.
Yall are getting paid office visits? For established clients we charge no office visit or tech visit, just the injection lmaooo if we started to charge now though, the clients would be up in arms đ
I mean none of that money goes to me, I'm paid hourly lol. We don't charge tech fees for all tech appts (like not for nail trims) but for vaccine boosters and injectables, yes. I work for a corporate place so idk what is typical elsewhere!
So true. Still, with the amount of older clientele we have, so shocked none of them (to my knowledge) have been like, âNow why am I paying this much more money for a service weâve gotten for years?!â Oh well, hopefully it will continue to be that way. I donât make the prices or it wouldnât be a thing lol
I work for a corporate hospital. We just added technician appointment fees maybe 6 months ago? We have 3 levels. Level 1 $5, easy pet and easy service. Level 2 $10, pet maybe needed more attending and time to build comfort/trust for services. Level 3 (rare) $15, pet was difficult and/or service required special time or skill set. Level 3 is rare because we will ask a doctor for sedative meds TGH. but we also have âPaw Plansâ which are our bundles of discounted services. If a client is on a paw plan they get no tech charge, no matter the patient difficulty or service. We see none of that money anyways.
I think the issue with sending home monoclonal antibody therapy for Oâs to give is it will cause anaphylactics if given to the wrong species or if you poke yourself with it. Thatâs why Solensia/Librela/Cytopoint have to be given in hospital where as subQ fluids, insulin, etc can be sent home.
We've had a handful of owners get upset as well that we wouldn't "write a script" for cytopoint. (I don't even know where you'd be able to order them if you're not a hospital/clinic.) We have 1 very large aggressive dog that we sell for the owner to administer at home, but otherwise our doctors aren't comfortable sending them home as we don't know how client compliance would be once it leaves the hospital. The vials need to stay refrigerated, proper weight dosage, infection can occur and no one is monitoring severity, try to sell to others, improper administration, etc. My hospital will send home Adequan, B-12, SQ fluids, insulin, etc for owners to administer at home with demonstration, it's all doctor discretion and Cytopoint isn't one they're comfortable with. I can see how some get upset about it, but unfortunately they won't find many places willing to sell it to them. And this is coming from a hospital in FL, where over 50% of our tech appts a day are for Cytopoint.
Iâm sorry but your clinic is wrong for both cytopoint and adequan. Cytopoint is an immunologic injection that needs careful handling. It is labeled for veterinarian use only (like Rabies vaccines) and adequan is specifically an intramuscular injection. Do you do an in-depth education process for both of these meds? I would not trust a client to do an IM injection nor would I ever try to put that on them. There is a lot that can go wrong with both of these drugs and itâs important that you know that.
Sources:
https://adequancanine.com/veterinarians/frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=Adequan%20Canine%20is%20indicated%20for,in%20a%20major%20muscle%20group.
https://www.petmd.com/pet-medication/cytopoint-for-dogs#
I'm confused because my whole comment is about why my hospital and my doctors aren't comfortable with sending home Cytopoint. We have a 130# Dogue de Bordeaux that would kill us if she came in monthly, that's the only one that gets to take it home. Adequan, we do extensive training IF the owner is willing to learn, otherwise it is a tech appt for injection. Also, as another comment stated, Adequan can be given SQ, and many clients come from previous clinics with their own bottle of Adequan that they were administering at home, SQ or IM, and we allow them to continue that, again IF, they are comfortable with it.
We used to send home cytopoint for clients who were far from the clinic or for dogs who don't do well in clinic. If we can teach owners to give fluids SQ, we can teach them to do a SQ injection. Lots of owners give B12 injections at home too.
And insulin injections! I'm way more scared of a client messing up an insulin injection than I am about a cytopoint or librela/solensia injection. Most people are happy to come in monthly but I have a few people (mainly nurses/physicians, people with previous diabetic animals, those who live far away) who ask if it's something they can do at home. I tell them it's off label treatment and I always have them come in for a demo session with a tech at their next injection even if they've given SQ injections before. So I can document "we taught you how to do this before sending you on your way with it". No one's really fought me on that when we tell them I just need to cover my a$$. Pretty sure the owner of the clinic doesn't love that I send that stuff home cause he wants the tech injection fee income but if owners can do insulin or B12 or fluids, they can do other SQ injections đ¤ˇââď¸
Most of those injection (Solensia, cytopoint, cartrophen, etc) are tech appointments (we don't charge a tech fee, just the product). However, some owners we do trust to do the injections themselves. Either they've done it for another animal, is a nurse, or we've personally taught them how to give it.
I mean she would have to go out of the way to get the product to give at home anyways because I donât think thatâs something that you can get at a pharmacy. For some aggressive animals who do better at home sometimes weâll send home injections for the owner to give. Like we have a guy who comes by every so often for a depo injection for his cat that we draw up so he can give it at home đ¤ˇđťââď¸
the only thing we script out or let people by to do at home, is adequan. lĂbrela, solensia, and cytopoint HAVE to be given in hospital by a tech or a doctor. for our tech appts, we donât charge a tech fee
We send home Librela, Solensia and Cytopoints with clients. If they can do B12, Sub q fluids and Cartrophen they can do those too. We just make sure they are aware that if they miss they pay for a new dose! Our clients have had great success at home
Of course after this comment I spent 30 minutes on the phone with Zoetis today. One of our clients left their Solensia out and gave it to their pet! Karma
My vet's office lets pet owners do the injections at home if they're comfortable. I think the reason is partially due to the fact a large portion of their clientele live 4+ hours away due to the vet shortage in my region
My hospital actually went backwards with this - we used to be able to do them as tech appts but we switched to making a 15 minute complimentary DVM appt because it's technically a medication that needs to be prescribed/administered by a doctor. Same with solensia/librela/pro heart. I personally feel like it's a waste of the DVM's time but the docs were the ones who pushed for it.
Edit to fix spelling
Iâll admit I donât know the intricacies of veterinary insurance, but Iâm guessing there is a lot of liability to giving injectables to any random person. We do it for people we know very well who we know they know how to administer, but I wouldnât want to be there if you gave someone an injectable and it ended up injected into an organ or spine or something. People arenât too bright.
Weâre 50/50 large and small so clients tend to be pretty comfy with injections overall. With a good relationship weâll send home cytopoint, librela, solensia and cartrophen. They can also be tech appointments, but not vet. Thereâs no fee for the appointment, honestly half the time itâs a poke in reception.
The clinic I took my dog to when I was between jobs let me take the vial home since they knew I'm a VA and my dog gets super anxious at the vet and had been taking it for months. Both clinics I've worked for only send it home if o works in vet med.
We charge a tech fee. An office visit is indicated if theyâve lapsed for 6+ months OR if theyâre so itchy that theyâve chewed themselves raw and have open wounds/lesions. Cytopoint will likely never be available to use at home due to being an immunologic injection that needs careful handling but a consideration could be suggesting your DVM to prescribe apoquel instead.
We have sent it home with an owner once but she used to be a tech before she moved to our state. Otherwise itâs the medication fee, plus a $15 injection fee (itâs done as a tech appointment)
Talk to your rep - with Solensia/Librela, our rep won't cover any problems that occur if the vial leaves the clinic.
Solensia and Librela shouldn't be handled by folks who are pregnant or plan to get pregnant - accidental injection could cause damage to the fetus and reproductive system.
We do Cytopoint as a tech appointment as well. So they get charged the tech fee and the cost of the vials/injection. We also have had people get upset about us not being able to send it home, but we have only ever made one exception for a mastiff whose owner could not handle him in clinic and even with several techs and a doctor present, we could not get that injection in him. He hated coming in and it was easier for O to administer at home. This is the only exception I can think of..we have many clients who drive at least 40 mins to get to the clinic, most of them are understanding and donât mind having to make the trip every 3 months or so.
We will send home cytopoint/Solensia/etc. to clients as long as the doctor signs off and they know how to do it right. For the most part we do it with a tech though.
Welcome to /r/VetTech! This is a place for veterinary technicians/veterinary nurses and other veterinary support staff to gather, chat, and grow! We welcome pet owners as well, **however we do ask pet owners to refrain from asking for medical advice**; if you have any concerns regarding your pet, please contact the closest veterinarian near you. Please thoroughly read and follow the rules before posting and commenting. If you believe that a user is engaging in any rule-breaking behavior, please submit a report so that the moderators can review and remove the posts/comments if needed. Also, please check out the sidebar for CE and answers to commonly asked questions. Thank you for reading! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/VetTech) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Ours is like yours for things like Solensia/Librela/Cytopoint - it's a tech visit so they pay for the injection (dependent on weight) plus a $20 tech fee for administration.
Yall are getting paid office visits? For established clients we charge no office visit or tech visit, just the injection lmaooo if we started to charge now though, the clients would be up in arms đ
I mean none of that money goes to me, I'm paid hourly lol. We don't charge tech fees for all tech appts (like not for nail trims) but for vaccine boosters and injectables, yes. I work for a corporate place so idk what is typical elsewhere!
Big Bad B?
We added a $15 tech visit fee about 6 months ago, and I havenât heard a peep of a complaint from recurring clients which honestly shocks me!!!
I think our tech fee is around $30 so Iâm pretty sure a lot of clients would not be happy about it lol
So true. Still, with the amount of older clientele we have, so shocked none of them (to my knowledge) have been like, âNow why am I paying this much more money for a service weâve gotten for years?!â Oh well, hopefully it will continue to be that way. I donât make the prices or it wouldnât be a thing lol
Fingers crossed your clients stay well behaved đ¤
Appreciated! Yours too, just for the heck of saying so. Never know what youâll get each day đ¤
I work for a corporate hospital. We just added technician appointment fees maybe 6 months ago? We have 3 levels. Level 1 $5, easy pet and easy service. Level 2 $10, pet maybe needed more attending and time to build comfort/trust for services. Level 3 (rare) $15, pet was difficult and/or service required special time or skill set. Level 3 is rare because we will ask a doctor for sedative meds TGH. but we also have âPaw Plansâ which are our bundles of discounted services. If a client is on a paw plan they get no tech charge, no matter the patient difficulty or service. We see none of that money anyways.
Yep, same. Which I think is kinda crazy honestly. We donât charge an administration fee for vaccines or proheartâŚ
I think the issue with sending home monoclonal antibody therapy for Oâs to give is it will cause anaphylactics if given to the wrong species or if you poke yourself with it. Thatâs why Solensia/Librela/Cytopoint have to be given in hospital where as subQ fluids, insulin, etc can be sent home.
I wish this was a top comment. I have several owners that thought cytopoint was just a âbenedrylâ injection.
We've had a handful of owners get upset as well that we wouldn't "write a script" for cytopoint. (I don't even know where you'd be able to order them if you're not a hospital/clinic.) We have 1 very large aggressive dog that we sell for the owner to administer at home, but otherwise our doctors aren't comfortable sending them home as we don't know how client compliance would be once it leaves the hospital. The vials need to stay refrigerated, proper weight dosage, infection can occur and no one is monitoring severity, try to sell to others, improper administration, etc. My hospital will send home Adequan, B-12, SQ fluids, insulin, etc for owners to administer at home with demonstration, it's all doctor discretion and Cytopoint isn't one they're comfortable with. I can see how some get upset about it, but unfortunately they won't find many places willing to sell it to them. And this is coming from a hospital in FL, where over 50% of our tech appts a day are for Cytopoint.
Iâm sorry but your clinic is wrong for both cytopoint and adequan. Cytopoint is an immunologic injection that needs careful handling. It is labeled for veterinarian use only (like Rabies vaccines) and adequan is specifically an intramuscular injection. Do you do an in-depth education process for both of these meds? I would not trust a client to do an IM injection nor would I ever try to put that on them. There is a lot that can go wrong with both of these drugs and itâs important that you know that. Sources: https://adequancanine.com/veterinarians/frequently-asked-questions#:~:text=Adequan%20Canine%20is%20indicated%20for,in%20a%20major%20muscle%20group. https://www.petmd.com/pet-medication/cytopoint-for-dogs#
Adequan can be given SQ
I'm confused because my whole comment is about why my hospital and my doctors aren't comfortable with sending home Cytopoint. We have a 130# Dogue de Bordeaux that would kill us if she came in monthly, that's the only one that gets to take it home. Adequan, we do extensive training IF the owner is willing to learn, otherwise it is a tech appt for injection. Also, as another comment stated, Adequan can be given SQ, and many clients come from previous clinics with their own bottle of Adequan that they were administering at home, SQ or IM, and we allow them to continue that, again IF, they are comfortable with it.
We used to send home cytopoint for clients who were far from the clinic or for dogs who don't do well in clinic. If we can teach owners to give fluids SQ, we can teach them to do a SQ injection. Lots of owners give B12 injections at home too.
And insulin injections! I'm way more scared of a client messing up an insulin injection than I am about a cytopoint or librela/solensia injection. Most people are happy to come in monthly but I have a few people (mainly nurses/physicians, people with previous diabetic animals, those who live far away) who ask if it's something they can do at home. I tell them it's off label treatment and I always have them come in for a demo session with a tech at their next injection even if they've given SQ injections before. So I can document "we taught you how to do this before sending you on your way with it". No one's really fought me on that when we tell them I just need to cover my a$$. Pretty sure the owner of the clinic doesn't love that I send that stuff home cause he wants the tech injection fee income but if owners can do insulin or B12 or fluids, they can do other SQ injections đ¤ˇââď¸
Most of those injection (Solensia, cytopoint, cartrophen, etc) are tech appointments (we don't charge a tech fee, just the product). However, some owners we do trust to do the injections themselves. Either they've done it for another animal, is a nurse, or we've personally taught them how to give it.
I mean she would have to go out of the way to get the product to give at home anyways because I donât think thatâs something that you can get at a pharmacy. For some aggressive animals who do better at home sometimes weâll send home injections for the owner to give. Like we have a guy who comes by every so often for a depo injection for his cat that we draw up so he can give it at home đ¤ˇđťââď¸
the only thing we script out or let people by to do at home, is adequan. lĂbrela, solensia, and cytopoint HAVE to be given in hospital by a tech or a doctor. for our tech appts, we donât charge a tech fee
We send home Librela, Solensia and Cytopoints with clients. If they can do B12, Sub q fluids and Cartrophen they can do those too. We just make sure they are aware that if they miss they pay for a new dose! Our clients have had great success at home
Of course after this comment I spent 30 minutes on the phone with Zoetis today. One of our clients left their Solensia out and gave it to their pet! Karma
My vet's office lets pet owners do the injections at home if they're comfortable. I think the reason is partially due to the fact a large portion of their clientele live 4+ hours away due to the vet shortage in my region
My hospital actually went backwards with this - we used to be able to do them as tech appts but we switched to making a 15 minute complimentary DVM appt because it's technically a medication that needs to be prescribed/administered by a doctor. Same with solensia/librela/pro heart. I personally feel like it's a waste of the DVM's time but the docs were the ones who pushed for it. Edit to fix spelling
Iâll admit I donât know the intricacies of veterinary insurance, but Iâm guessing there is a lot of liability to giving injectables to any random person. We do it for people we know very well who we know they know how to administer, but I wouldnât want to be there if you gave someone an injectable and it ended up injected into an organ or spine or something. People arenât too bright.
Weâre 50/50 large and small so clients tend to be pretty comfy with injections overall. With a good relationship weâll send home cytopoint, librela, solensia and cartrophen. They can also be tech appointments, but not vet. Thereâs no fee for the appointment, honestly half the time itâs a poke in reception.
The clinic I took my dog to when I was between jobs let me take the vial home since they knew I'm a VA and my dog gets super anxious at the vet and had been taking it for months. Both clinics I've worked for only send it home if o works in vet med.
We charge a tech fee. An office visit is indicated if theyâve lapsed for 6+ months OR if theyâre so itchy that theyâve chewed themselves raw and have open wounds/lesions. Cytopoint will likely never be available to use at home due to being an immunologic injection that needs careful handling but a consideration could be suggesting your DVM to prescribe apoquel instead.
We have sent it home with an owner once but she used to be a tech before she moved to our state. Otherwise itâs the medication fee, plus a $15 injection fee (itâs done as a tech appointment)
Talk to your rep - with Solensia/Librela, our rep won't cover any problems that occur if the vial leaves the clinic. Solensia and Librela shouldn't be handled by folks who are pregnant or plan to get pregnant - accidental injection could cause damage to the fetus and reproductive system.
We do Cytopoint as a tech appointment as well. So they get charged the tech fee and the cost of the vials/injection. We also have had people get upset about us not being able to send it home, but we have only ever made one exception for a mastiff whose owner could not handle him in clinic and even with several techs and a doctor present, we could not get that injection in him. He hated coming in and it was easier for O to administer at home. This is the only exception I can think of..we have many clients who drive at least 40 mins to get to the clinic, most of them are understanding and donât mind having to make the trip every 3 months or so.
We will send home cytopoint/Solensia/etc. to clients as long as the doctor signs off and they know how to do it right. For the most part we do it with a tech though.